some of the staff
drill site
field office
our camp kitchen - sans rats at the moment
my tent in the foreground

Well, I'm back in France now after my first stint in Cote d'Ivoire and trying to collect my thoughts on my time there. I don't really know where to start, it was much as I expected, but not at the same time. I think I will start at the start and go from there.

I left France on the 1st of October and after a 1 hr sit on the tarmac in Paris made it to Abidjan at 7pm local time, a 6hr flight. Abidjan is the admin capital for CDI and is the largest city, but is not the capital. Yamoussoukro has that tag, even though it is a small place. But it was the home of the Ivorian leader, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who was determined to make it the leader of Ivoria.

I was picked up at the airport along with a few other LGL Gold people who just flew in. LGL Gold is an Australian company expanding into Africa and is upscaling operations hugely in the next few months. We have doubled the no of expat staff since I have been there, mostly upper management.

After a night in Abidjan (the roads are not safe to drive on at night) we headed for Yamoussoukro, our base of operations. LGL has a bunch of exploration permits scattered around the country and a working mine at Bonikro, close to Yamo. My role is as exploration geologist and project manager. I have been given a project to the north of the country that has over 600 drill holes into it and I need to work out where the gold is concentrated. Not hard to find small quantities, but not easy to find an economic load either. Generally the exploration is like my previous experience, although with less emphasis on airborne geophysics and the geology is very different. We are in old metamorphic volcanic and sediment rocks, very similar to NE South America and other West African countries that have had some success with gold exploration, so the hope is that CDI will be the same. Up till now CDI has been focused on agriculture so exploration has been minimal but they are expanding. I think it all looks very promising, fingers crossed!

We have an office in Yam, and field camps in various locations where we have on-going exploration. My project is 4-5 hrs drive from Yamo and has a fully set up field camp, complete with office, kitchen, tented accommodation, long drops and bucket showers. I have yet to run into any local wild life (not counting the insects), but have been informed that we have "beaucoup des elephants and lyons" here and of course snakes! Not looking forward to seeing those wriggly buggers, but it is inevitable. Our office in Yamo consists of a house in the suburbs, with our accommodation the houses next-door. The set up is not bad here; good phone and internet access, and we are upgrading the equipment we have to cope with the increase in staff. The houses are pretty well set up to, with all mod cons, including sat tv from UK and France, so all the European rugby to tap! Will just have to convince the boss that I need time to watch the all blacks play...

LGL has around 70 staff (I think) in Cote d’Ivoire, including geo’s, admin, field staff, cooks and drivers. It seems that driving in this country is pretty tricky so they have people to do that for us. There is a small number of expat staff, mostly geo’s, who are the project managers etc, with local geo’s doing more of the grunt work. Although there are also local geo’s in senior roles. Everyone seems really friendly, even with me who doesn't speak much French yet! Most of the geo's speak English to some level, better than my French at any rate, but I am forced to speak and listen to French all the time so am learning quickly.

I've included a couple of photos of the camp in the Nth and some of the people I work with. And no, the locals don't have red hair but were gifted those wigs from a Scottish geo and reckon it keeps the fly’s away!